Ok, which is better and why? I have WinXP w/ a printer and a WinME laptop. I just want file and print sharing. Both have their own modem's so no internet sharing. Connected via Cat5 crossover to 10/100 nic in XP and 10/100 USB nic in laptop. I did this with NetBEUI with win2k prior to XP upgrade and it was fine, XP wants TCP/IP, but ME can't connect to the XP box ("unkown error 31", "computer is not accepting requests"???) and when XP connects to the ME laptop, it's SLOW. The connection was very fast under NetBEUI with win2k. Both nic's show a 100 connection.

NetBeui is faster but, not routable. TCP is routable.

What is the advantage to routable?

if you oly have a couple of pc's dont worry about it, use NB.

Use TCP only if you use Internet sharing on your network. For connection to XP box create a user on XP give him some rights on share drivers, ..., log on WinME with that user and password(not necessary). For XP you may find an install the NetBeui protocol. That is all foks!

TCP and NetBEUI are apples and oranges. Neither is better than the other, they both have their purpose although NetBeui is pretty much being phased out, as is IPX, because TCP/IP is such a versitle protocol. NetBeui is easier to configure both new enhancement to 98, 2000 and XP allow for most of the setup to be automatic if you choose to. (Automatic Private IP Addressing feature - APIPA) NetBeui is not routable which means if you have to connect to another network, like in a corporate environment or the Internet, NetBeui will not work. Since it has less overhead, NetBeui is faster although probably not enough for you to notice. If you connect to the Internet, use IP and be done with it. If you just want to connect two computers NetBeui will work fine for that. Having said all this. You might as well just learn how to configure IP and use it. It most certainly is not going away and it will help to know it in the future.